AN ODD LIFE. 267
had died in the African deserts, but he could nut so easily patch up a marriage there. I had no option, therefore, but to make Downton my heir, and I have never had occasion to regret it from the day of my rebirth to this, the day of my death. As soon as I was born we returned to England, and I wrote my obituary and drove to the Press Association with it. Downton took it into the office while I waited in Fleet Street in the hansom. I can scarcely hope to convey to you an idea of the intensity and agreeableness of my sensations at this unprecedented epoch. The variegated life of Fleet Street gave me the keenest joy : every sight and every sound — beautiful or sordid — thrilled my nerves to rapture. I was interested in everything. Imagine the delicious freshness of one's second year supervening upon the jaded sensibilities of seventy-seven. All my wide and varied knowledge of life lay in my soul as before, but trans- figured. Over my large experience of men and things was shed a stream of sunshine which irradiated everything with divine light ; every streak of cynicism faded. I had the wisdom of an old man and the heart of a little child. I believed in man again, and even in woman. I shed tears of pure ecstasy ; and when I heard a female of the lower classes say : ' Poor little thing ! What a shame to leave it crying in a cab ! ' I laughed aloud in glee. She exclaimed : 1 Ah ! now it's laughing, my petsy-wootsy ! ' Her conversa- tion saddened me again, and I was glad I had not burdened myself with a mother, and that I took my milk from a bot- tle instead of a doting nurse. And how exquisite was this same apparently monotonous menu of milk to an epicurean who had ruined his digestion ! I felt I was recuperating on a vegetarian diet, and I rejoiced to think some years must elapse before I would care for champagne or re-acquire a taste for full-flavoured Manillas. Perhaps somewhat unrea-
